Excerpt: Fans of the Seth Grahame-Smith’s bestselling novel “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” should know up front that the movie version doesn’t bear that much resemblance to the book. Moviegoers are used to that of course, but not so much when the novelist is the sole credited writer on the screenplay. Grahame-Smith has pretty much chucked his own novel here, and more’s the pity. All the imaginative stuff for the most part’s been pitched and what’s left is an illogical, muddled, mess. What little that makes sense isn’t particularly good—this is a stock, paint-by-numbers vampire movie that wouldn’t cut it as an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Excerpt: Somehow picturing Lincoln wielding an ax on vampires instead of logs for a cozy makeshift cabin makes for some outlandish and loose-minded liberties to digest as reasonable camp. It is too bad that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer delivers this sluggish sentiment in such a tepid fashion.